leave me, J? But even though I’ve repeated that question over and over in my head for the past few days, I know the answer. I would have done the same damn thing. Besides that, if he had fought back…they would’ve hurt him more.
Don’t leave me for good. My stomach twists into knots, thinking of what he might be planning. Thinking of where he is. I know how easy it can be to run from this street, despite the guards.
I went through the backyard once. Got picked up by Nicolas. As controlling and rich as my husband is, he actually isn’t God.
I offer Ella a fake smile. “I’m okay,” I tell her, lying through my teeth. I don’t think I’ve been okay in a long, long time. Maybe never.
I turn back to gaze out at the dark forest beyond the house. The guard is in front of the door the leads off to the backyard, to the oasis of trees and a garden that I’m sure Ella tends to.
Ella isn’t even Mav’s wife, but she’s the perfect housewife all the fucking same.
I wonder what she does all day while he works. I wonder what she wants to be doing. If she ever thinks of running, or if that’s just me.
I shift in the rocking chair I’m in, leaning my head back against it and closing my eyes. I hear the screen door close to the house and I think Ella has gone back inside, but then the creak of wood is beside me and my eyes fly open, connecting with her green ones. She’s in the chair beside me. Off to her right, a little stone fountain provides the only break in the heavy silence between us on the hot spring night.
“Do you know what’s going on?” she asks me quietly.
I stare at her a moment, trying to gauge her angle. The only person who has always been on my side has been Jeremiah, and even he lied to me about the biggest things. I wonder if Ella is trying to pry. To report back to Mav. Lucifer.
But her eyes are wide and innocent, her red hair in a messy bun, a few strands framing her freckled face. She’s wearing a red skirt, her feet bare, red coating her toenails. Her fingers are drumming against the arms of the chair, and I see her breasts straining against the white T-shirt she’s wearing, tied just over her hip. Her belly is soft, spilling over the top of her skirt, her skin flawless.
I think about Lucifer taunting me about O’s curves. Julie’s.
I feel sick and dig my nails into the top of my hands. “No,” I finally answer her, because I don’t know what the fuck is going on.
She nods, as if she expected that answer, and then she turns to gaze out at the guard, at her backyard. She looks so young from this angle, her lips plump, her face, too. She’s nineteen, Mav had told us. Nineteen, and she’s already thrown her life away by entangling herself in something as sinister as the 6. The fucking Unsaints.
The brotherhood from hell.
“Someone had photos of you,” Ella says quietly, still staring straight ahead, telling me something I already know. “You were…” she shakes her head, her brow furrowing, but she still doesn’t look at me. “You were running. The pictures were delivered like a message. On Elijah’s guard’s lap, in the car they shot him in.”
She turns my way, her eyes searching mine.
I keep my head tilted back, against the rocking chair, listening. I knew about the photos. But I didn’t know about all of this shit. Seems I wasn’t crazy after all. Someone was watching me.
“Then the night you came back, Elijah’s wife never came home from her private Pilates class.” She shrugs. “And the night before that, a dancer was killed in Jeremiah’s club.” She stumbles over his name, like it’s a curse.
I kind of hate her for that.
I hate how everyone hates him.
I think about Cindy grinding against Jeremiah, wonder again if it was her. How long was she alive after that?
“That’s why Lucifer finally came for me?” I spit at her. “Because someone is after them, and he’s getting scared?” I sit up straighter, twisting in the seat. “That’s it? Let me guess, the entire time I was fucking gone…he didn’t get help? Go to rehab? Have someone come to him to get clean?” Imagining any of the Unsaints in rehab is hilarious, but I know they have